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The conversation in the Club veered around to the International Women’s Day as it was sure to. It all started off with my mentioning that I had received a rather accusatory text message saying “You did not wish me today”, and my saying that I was still rather fogged about what that was all about.

The discussion moved on to how people all over the world were observing the day. This chap mentioned that Hollywood had the best do where the who’s who attended the Academy Awards.

“But that was the day before the IWD!”.

“Sure, but it was the IWD in more than half the world by then”.

So we conceded the point, but wondered what that had to do with the IWD? The chap replied it had everything to do. “Just look at all the nominations and awards they gave to women”, he said, “especially in the Best Actress Categories!”.

Not knowing if he was being facetious, I said I liked Ben Stiller dressing up as a character from Avatar when he presented an award. “Talking of Avatar”, the chap went on, ” did you know that one of Cameron’s ex-wives said that Titanic was the mistress Cameron left her for? And that a film made by another of his ex-wives beat him at this year’s Oscars? That’s saying a lot for woman power.”

Not to be left out, a fellow said that that was nothing compared to what India was going to do on the day. “Pass the Women’s Reservation Bill”, he said. When we wondered what that would be, he said it was a bill to ensure that 33% of all parliamentary consistuencies would be reserved for women alone. “Affirmative action”, we scoffed, “it would never work”.

Sure enough, the Bill fell flat on it’s face, leading all women leaders to fume. But why does the country need affirmative action when a woman is President, a woman virtually runs the country, another controls the marxist unions, and a third runs the largest railway in the world?

And to what end, I wondered, all this reservation, when crimes against women are still so rampant, honor killings and crimes rife, female infanticide common, the sex ratio skewed against women (it has improved to 838 they say, but is that really an improvement?), when out of thousands of candidates for 544 seats in the Parliament, this country could manage to elect only 59 women in the last elections?

So much for a day dedicated to women!! Maybe what this country needs is to dedicate it’s whole self to women every single day of the year!